The timelord of Doctor Who, a man since 1963, will be portrayed by a woman – actress Jodie Whittaker – for the first time.
Peter Capaldi, Doctor number 12, will regenerate after four years in the BBC's Christmas 2017 special to take on his new, female form. We last saw Capaldi's Doctor fighting his regeneration in Series 10, …

- a Gene Hunt quote?

Never mind the gender, feel the height

Past doctors have been tall by the standards of leading men (cf T. Cruise Esq. and similar midgets), so we might have expected a tallish woman for the part. JW is only average at a non-metric 5'5", which is going to make setting up face-to-face confrontations with villains a whole new ballgame, as we say here.

You want Jane Bond?

This would cause arguments if taken up by the non porn based industry.

James Bond sleeps around, he is a hero.

Jane Bond sleeps around and she will be called a bad name.

This then will create a conflict where one group will state, quite right, women are equal to men and can sleep around like men do. Then another group will complain, portraying men who sleep around as something to aspire to, just makes men treat women badly.

The ironic thing is, it will be women who are complaining about both aspects.

Necrophobic

It's a bit necrophobic of the BBC not to bring back John Pertwee. Even if he did or did not have a posthumous sex change, it is a such an outrage. Never going to watch TV again. I'm so f*****g triggered right now.

Re: Necrophobic

A bit too SJW

Lets face it, if the doctor had never married Riversong and had a kid, or indeed started coupling up at all, this would be throughly normal. But since the Doctor has already done so, now there's a bit of a mess.

There's plenty of SJW possibilities: Riversong could be pissed off she's made into a lesbian without consent, or could embrace it and have her own sex change. But then she might be homophobic!

I suspect the more this crap goes on, the fewer people will watch, and then the next Doctor will have to exit a shower asking what he missed :-)

Re: A bit too SJW

I don't care one way or the other just as long as it's done well. Good scripts, good acting, good production values etc. Something that is entertaining to watch, and good enough to watch again every now and then.

Re: Jelly babies

My only complaint is that she looks too BBC. Stand her between Laura Kuenssberg and Emily Maitlis and spot the odd one out. That and every youtube video I've found of her has her acting far too restrained to be the doctor.

That said, she has enough time to fix that, I look forward to seeing her be anything but normal and restrained.

P.S. She's still playing a male timelord, just temporarily in a female body. Same way the general was always female.

Looks too BBC?

You mean she looks like a Redgrave or a Richardson. Not to disparage her, but if you wanted a Redgrave or a Richardson and you couldn't get one, you might wind up with the first actor who looked like one. Perhaps those dynasties have had the effect of spawning a generation of lookalikes.

See Jemma Redgrave's turn as Kate Stewart, and indeed the spin-off portrayal.

Agenda? What Agenda?

It always bugs me that certain "fans" accuse the BBC of doing this to further some kind of "lefty PC agenda", while being completely ignorant of how casting in done for TV shows. The Beeb don't hover over Doctor Who like some nebulous Big Brother, pointing at Chibnall and intoning "Thou Shalt Cast a Female Doctor for Lo it is the next stage in the great LGBT Master Plan".

Chibnall has total control of who he auditions and who he casts. Yes he's admitted he's always wanted a female Doctor, because he like strong female roles, and wants to see what JW will do with it.

Oh and the other complaint is that he's picked her because she was in his show Broadchurch. Well, duh, yeah why not? He'll contact the agents of actors whose work he is familiar with and ask them to come in and audition. Same reason why RTD auditioned and cast Tennant, who he'd worked with on "Casanova". If Whittaker hadn't pleased him in the audition he wouldn't have cast her, simple as that. But apparently she aced it, so she's the 13th Doctor.

Sometimes (probably most times) there isn't a hidden agenda. There isn't a plot. Sometimes actors get the job because they're damn good at it.

Personally I've never look forward to a new series of Doctor Who this much since 2005.

Re: Regenerate a few more fingers?

Re: Regenerate a few more fingers?

"If we're going to be picky, didn't Tate effectively become a quasi-Doctor until it started to burn out her brain and she got wiped?"

Well, being picky, she gained some Time Lord power but didn't actually become The Doctor. As did Rose before her. You're probably being mis-led by Donnas comments about gaining the powers where she hysterically referred to herself as Dr Donna.

Re: Not just Broadchurch

Re: Not just Broadchurch

Natural life cycle

It's pretty obvious that the gender change is part of the TLs natural life cycle. Like many creatures here on earth (e.g. Slipper Limpets) they spend many years as males impregnating as many females as possible and then turn into females and breed some more.

She's Heaven Sent

I'll be watching "Take Me Out" on ITV, far more entertaining and cerebral than the rubbish they have been serving up as Dr Who, has more women in it too. Hey now there's a possibility for Dr Who, Paddy McGuinness as the 14th (TV series) Doctor.

Hmm

I dont watch it nor give a hoot about it (not that I have a problem with others enjoying it). But I have been very amused at the many news articles (as if TV is news but I dont understand reporting of XFactor or bake off either) proclaiming how wonderful it is to have a vagina as the lead to Dr Who.

I feel really sorry for the actress. I dont know if she was hired for her acting ability or because she has 2 humps on her chest but the reporting of her appointment does seem to reduce her to female bits. The start of this article running through her career was good but things like- "Finally, at least one of those boxes been ticked and we can move on." makes me cringe.

I get bothered when stupid ideas are floated like a gay bond or black spiderman etc only because it cheapens the role to PC bull. The rantings that WW was the first female heroine was quickly shot down with a list because people can and deserve to do things on their own merit. Shoehorning for PC sake is irritating and 'buying' viewers instead of earning them. I really hope for Jodie that is not what they are doing to her as it would be unfair to anyone. Best of luck to her.

Re: Hmm

I agree that gay Bond would be a bit daft, given how ingrained the character's sexuality is to the role. Similarly a wheelchair bound Captain America wouldn't work - that also doesn't go with the fundamental essence of the character. But what's wrong with the idea of a black Spiderman? Nothing fundamentally white about that character, it just happens to be the way the comics were originally drawn. If rebooting the franchise is OK at all, why couldn't it be a black science geek who gets a dose of radioactive spider venom this time around?

None of these gender or race issues applies in the case of Doctor Who. Due to the regeneration meme the Doctor could quite literally be played by anyone the show's creators want to hire for the role. The show runner just has to play it straight, not treat it as some kind of big novelty themselves.

The new Doctor is female - so what? Best of luck to her - I'm looking forward to seeing what she'll do with the role. If she's anything like as good as Michelle Gomez was as Missy then we're in for a treat.

Re: the idea of a black Spiderman?

It seems to me that there are two main/likely versions of a "black spiderman".

a) the original Peter Parker, but re/written as black

b) A black teen, who gets spiderman-like powers

I'm not much fussed either way, but I reckon that (a) would be more likely to irritate, and that (b) would actually give the (new) character, the powers, and the storyline a great deal of valuable freedom from the existing spiderman canon.